


No Gift Exchange Needed

by SkyWillSometimesWrite



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: I feel so bad, M/M, Secret Santa, i changed my mind on the prompt like five times, this is so late
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 11:26:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17182073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyWillSometimesWrite/pseuds/SkyWillSometimesWrite
Summary: The Reds and Blues have been invited to a holiday party on Chorus, and Simmons is nervous but for the conventional reasons.





	No Gift Exchange Needed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [9foxgrl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/9foxgrl/gifts).



> This is my gift to @9foxgrl on tumblr for the secret santa! They wanted some grimmons, red team, and Carolina & Simmons bonding so I fit it all in one! It's a little late but I hope you enjoy it!

The holidays never struck particularly good feelings into Richard Simmons. It usually meant hours of forced social interaction with family members he had done last minute research on the night before and constant pressuring from said relatives about parts of his life he hadn’t even thought about yet. (Needless to say, not much praise was met when he mentioned he was going to go into the military. _“If you’re serious about that, it probably wouldn’t hurt for you to eat an extra serving of turkey. You’ll need some meat on those bones.”_ ) He quickly realized the first Christmas after he joined the military that the holidays would probably never be the same. Just the idea that he may have had the last winter with his parents was enough to send a spike of anxiety through his brain and reaching for the nearest communication device to wish his mom happy holidays. Even though his fears had been confirmed many years later, by the time they were they were less fears and more small interesting observations he had come to realize and accept with very little sadness. He figured it had to do with the fact that his notion of family had drastically changed over time.

But now, of course, the familiar feeling of dread began to pile up in his stomach again as he stared out the window of the transport ship that was beginning its descent to one of the various airports made around Chorus. They were landing in the capital where a large holiday celebration was being held and all the reds and blues had been formally invited to. It had seemed like a good idea at first, a good chance to catch up with the residents of Chorus, maybe get some paperwork done for Kimball. A great vacation from retirement. Now, he was very much regretting the entire thing.

“Dude, chill out. You look like you’re having war flashbacks.”

“Returning to the scene of a gruesome battle will do that to poor youth. Hang in there, Simmons, it gets worse on the ground.”

“Sarge, you are not helping.”

Simmons regretted traveling with the entirety of red team even more. Even if the usual Grif-Sarge arguing was almost comforting. “I’m not having war flashbacks or anything. I’m perfectly fine.”

“Then do you mind not crushing my hand? I swear you’re cutting off the circulation or some shit. You’ve been doing this since we entered Chorus’ star system and I can not feel it anymore.” Grif lifted their interlocked hands into view of the cyborg, causing his non-artificial cheek to flush as he quickly let go of the other’s hand and letting him shake it as he tried to get blood flowing back normally through the limb. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Y-Yeah! Definitely. It just kind of feels like when I used to go to those big obligatory family gatherings, you know? Everyone gets kind of nervous right before those, right?”

“Aw! Well, we did get pretty intimate with the people of Chorus when we grouped up to firmly pound those space pirates’ behinds. It only makes sense you would consider them family. They hold us to a pretty high standard.”

Simmons let out the faintest of groans as he sunk in his seat, imploring to stare out the window again as they were cleared for landing and the ground seemed to get suffocatingly closer.

“Alrighty, Donut, Sarge, stay here because at this rate you will send him into a panic attack.”

“No sería la primera vez. _(Wouldn’t be the first time.)_ ”

“Can it, tin can.” Grif glared at the, for once, intact robot in the corner as he helped Simmons stand up and guided him outside of the room into the bathroom at the back of the ship where he shut and locked the door. He crossed his arms, standing firmly but his eyes betrayed any hint of anger or annoyance for concern. “You said you were going to be able to handle this.”

“I can! It’s just the initial panic setting in. Once we’re here for a few hours I’ll be calm again in no time.” He was pretty sure some alcohol would help, too. “It’s a good type of anxiety this time, I promise. Nothing like last year with my father.” He caught Grif’s glance drift towards the mirror hanging on the wall, noting how the heavier-set man shifted his weight to block any path to it from Simmons. A pang of guilt washed over Simmons as he wrung his wrists. “I promise.”

With a heavy sigh, Grif’s shoulders fell from their apparently tense position. “Alright. But at the first sign of panic I’ll have us on the first ship out of here.”

There was no use arguing with Grif on these types of matters. All of red team had figured that out pretty quickly when they had settled back on Earth for retirement. Now that we, in his words, could control our own lives for once, he was dead set on making sure we lived them safe and adventure-free. For the most part, anyway. There were no rules against midnight joy rides.

“Grif, I’m not a child. I don’t need you holding my hand through every social interaction.”

“Says the guy that was literally about to make my hand fall off. I expected this entire trip to be almost entirely touch-free considering the company but you completely threw that out the window within the first few hours.” Grif shrugged, watching with a knowing smile as his boyfriend’s face grew a bright red.

“W-Well, we have been dating for quite some time now. I don’t see why you think I would be so shy with affection anymore.” Grif seemed unconvinced by Simmons’ meek attempts at an argument but before he could continue a voice crackled on over the ship’s intercom.

_“We have been cleared to deplane all passengers into the capital. Have a nice stay, sirs. Happy holidays.”_

“Come on, we don’t want Donut to start any rumors about us being locked in a bathroom for the entirety of the trip.” Grif placed a small kiss on Simmons’ flesh cheek before unlocking the door and leading the other man out to where they weren’t paid much mind as they all focused on getting off the ship and entering the bustling city just waiting for them.

* * *

Simmons would admit that, unlike his family gatherings when he was younger, this holiday party was arguably the most fun he’s had while as stressed as he was. Although, he could feel the alcohol slowly tearing away that wall of stress as the night went on and his glass got refilled and replacing it with a relaxing calm. Even so, he did not plan on getting drunk tonight and even set Donut on the mission to make sure Grif didn’t either. He knew how much he could get carried away with alcohol when left unsupervised. Especially around Tucker. He had heard many stories of late drunk nights amidst the chaos of the Chorus Civil War when the two of them had been the closest they had probably ever gotten. And those stories explained quite a few grumpier-than-usual-Grif mornings he had experienced during those months.

Holding his first drink of water all night, Simmons stepped out onto one of the many balconies the capital building had, taking a deep breath as the overwhelming noise became muffled behind him when the door clicked shut. The crisp night air felt nice on his remaining skin, refreshing almost.

“I probably should have figured you would be ducking out on the festivities.”

The voice made him jump, water sloshing out of his cup and landing on the concrete below him as his head whipped over to look at the source. His panic subsided when he saw the red hair, practically glowing green eyes, and sparkling teal dress.

“Carolina! What are… What are you doing out here?”

She shrugged, walking over to him and leaning against the railing next to him. “Just had to step away for a bit. I thought I had gotten used to the Tucker and Caboose’s nonsense but I forgot it amplified by ten when you guys were in the picture.”

Simmons chuckled a bit, sinking into the collar of his shirt. One of the first things Sarge had done when he spotted the two blues was that they had arrived early only to plot against them. Tucker argued for a few minutes trying to explain to him that both of their shuttles arrived at the exact same time but we had just taken way too long while Sarge interrogated the pilot. He had a point, but it added more fuel to the fire. Kimball had offered to send a larger transport ship to pick them all up but Simmons was grateful they opted to go separately. Tucker would have undoubtedly teased Grif and him the entire way there.

While the two teams weren’t completely split up they lived in two separate towns a few miles apart in the broken states of what remained of America on Earth. While the blues shared a house, Grif and Simmons had moved in together in a small two bedroom house with Sarge, Donut, and Lopez as their surrounding neighbors. They still all got together on a biweekly basis to catch up and have their movie nights, but they had more or less moved on with their lives.

“Yeah, brings back memories though, doesn’t it?” He attempted to lean against the railing like she was, his composure far less cool than hers.

“Yeah,” she sighed, her face briefly betraying her more somber emotions before it settled back into its soft stoic state once again. “So, how have you been? Everything good on the dating front with Grif?”

He suddenly felt a lot less relaxed, his mind slamming him back into the present and he lost her gaze to stare into the remaining water in the cup. Leave it to Carolina to make him unintentionally nervous. “Uh, yeah. It’s been about two years now. I think it’s been going well?” He really fucking hoped it was.

Dexter Grif had changed a lot over the time that Simmons first met him in basics. He was a lot more compassionate and caring, although if he thought hard enough he could say he had always been like that. He was more active and less dismissing of issues, and he was more proactive than Simmons could ever remember him being. He even cleaned up around the house sometimes! Grif was an open book by now with his emotions and thoughts -- even if he didn’t mean to be half the time -- so Simmons shouldn’t really question how their relationship was going. But Simmons’ hadn’t changed as much as Grif had, it seemed. Sure he was a hell of a lot more confident than he used to be, but you couldn’t take his anxiety away and still call him Richard “Dick” Simmons.

“That’s good.” There was a lull before she spoke again, “Hey, are you okay? You seem… paler than usual.”

Whatever color his skin had been presenting was overwhelmed with a pink color at the comment. “Of course! I’m fine! Psh, why wouldn’t I be? I’m not nervous or anything.”

“So you’re nervous?”

“I just said I _wasn’t_ nervous!” He looked at her unconvinced face and quickly sunk down into his shirt once again. “Maybe a little.”

“What could you possibly be nervous about? I don’t think there was any gift exchange planned.”

He managed a little chuckle from that. He had brought a gift. He just didn’t know how it was going to be received. A wire seemed to connect in his metal head and he stood up, gripping his cup tightly as he spoke. “Do you think you could help me with something?”

* * *

Grif was not as drunk as he wanted to be right now.

Grif wanted to regret tomorrow morning and just snuggle with Simmons while he told him this would happen and read his books or did paperwork or whatever he did when Grif got massive hangovers.

Grif was very annoyed that he wasn’t as drunk as he should have been three hours into a party with free drinks at the bar for war heroes and Tucker edging him on.

He was even more annoyed with the reason _why_ he wasn’t as drunk as he should’ve been.

Or _whom_.

Donut was draped across Grif’s shoulders, absolutely wasted (as Grif _should_ be), after his fifth fruity drink of the night. And every time Grif tried to order any sort of beverage -- alcoholic or not -- Donut told the bartender to forget it or he chugged the drink himself. Needless to say, he was absolutely parched right now. It didn’t help that both his sister and Tucker were groping each other, drunk off their asses right next to him. Where the hell was Simmons when he needed him?

“ _ **Dexter Grif!** _” 

The shout made everyone at the bar jump as they looked back to see a seemingly furious Carolina marching towards them. _This can’t be good._ Grif thought as Donut was shoved off his back into some poor stranger’s lap and the back of Grif’s suit jacket was tugged violently. He was dragged off the stool and sent backpedaling as he was pulled away. _At least it gets me away from Donut._

“Carolina, what the fuck are you doing?” He asked, mildly annoyed, as he struggled not to be choked by his own shirt. What could he have possibly done to render this kind of manhandling at a holiday party?

“Whoa, hey, I said to get him over here not kill him in the process!” Grif recognized Simmons’ voice as Carolina swung him to be face to face with his boyfriend. He looked back to see her smug face as she gave them a thumbs up and a wink.

“What the fuck is going on?” He asked as he turned back to face Simmons who went from concern to sheepish. “Simmons? What happened? Are you okay?” Suddenly his own plights were forgotten as a million different scenarios popped into his head, minuscule to earth-shattering, that might have happened in the hours he was away from his side.

“N-nothing's happened. Not yet at least.”

“Simmons-” As soon as Grif opened his mouth Simmons looked up, making eye contact for the first time and causing him to lose his words. The look on his face transported Grif to all those times years ago when there was no promise they would make it back, and they always did.

The look that inexplicably said: _You’re here with me._

“Grif, I-I wanted to ask you something. I know you aren’t one for tradition or sap or anything but-” He fumbled with something in his hands before he cracked the smallest of smiles. Grif felt he was watching in slow motion as his boyfriend knelt down in front of him.

“Simmons, what are you doing?” He whispered more to himself as he couldn’t help but glance around him, noticing the crowd that had formed.

“Dexter Grif, uh, I know this is sudden and I probably should have thought this through more but, uh,” he revealed what was in his hands, a maroon velvet box now perched in his palm as he opened it, revealing the ring pop inside. “Will you explore the greatest of life’s mysteries with me?”

Grif stood there for a long moment, his face unreadable, while the entire surrounding area was dead silent. Then his face cracked into a grin, a snort escaping that grew into full-on laughter. He bent down to take Simmons’ face in his hands, his own wearing a warm smile. “You are the cheesiest fucking dork.”

“So?”

“Of course I will, you nerd. But we both know that ring isn’t going to last very long.”

Cheering was met when they kissed, along with Sarge’s disapproving grumbles and Tucker’s distant “ _Get a room!_ ”. Maybe it was good Grif wasn’t drunk, who knows what he would have said. Besides, who needs alcohol when love can do the same thing?


End file.
